Weekend Estimates by 50% Klady
So we have Klady estimating domestic even higher than Disney… a flat 50% for the weekend.
I have always been a box office realist. I don’t take well to studios calling their shot and then magically hitting very specific, marketable targets. Never have. Never will. Doesn’t natter how I feel about the film.
Of course, when the numbers are up in these regions, there is a good chance that many people have lost their minds and often, their willingness to be reasonable. This 1% or so of studio releases does not conform to any history. So it becomes a Rorschach test. It’s not actually about the box office and the realities that can be relied upon the vast majority of the time. It becomes personal.
Success has many parents and failures few.
Well, it’s not personal, folks. Numbers don’t change the movies. And awards don’t actually make a movie better, either in its own right or in comparison to other movies.
Good on The Avengers. Good on Disney, which is covering the stench of John Carter‘s marketing failure with a movie that, for the most part, went though the same system with the same fired people who did the same deep bowing to the powers behind both movies, that John Carter did. Good on Marvel for getting a film into mega-movie status for the first time… now the really challenging part starts.
Of the Marvel-made Marvel movies, Iron Man was the one significant success. But with upticks last summer and this event this summer, they have moved into multiple-mega-franchise world. As Warners and Fox have found, it can be easier to get there than to maintain. Will Marvel be the Pixar of superheroes, putting out a film a year – never more than two – and keeping the brand going with few rough patches? Only time will tell.
I was, unquestionably, wrong about the upside on The Avengers. In Avengers math, there should be a 42% or so domestic drop next weekend. But I will be in another country thinking about other things. I’d be a hypocrite to try to get on the Avengers train now. So I will do what I would have done anyway… move along.
Looks like about $250m or so internationally and maybe $200m here. I’m sure that someone will see this as me raining on their parade. Zzzzz…
For the record, at this point, I don’t think The Dark Knight Rises or any other movie will beat Avengers this summer or this year. I do think there will be some Bat-growth. But not enough to catch up with these numbers. (I also, for the record, don’t think Chris Nolan gives a shit about winning the summer. He’ll be happy to take his second billion dollar hit, give notes on Superman, and go make non-Superhero movies.)
This is kinda-sorta a repeat of a question I posed last week: How did The Cup make even the small amount that it did? Don’t get me wrong: I liked the film. But in Houston, at least, it opened at a single theater with all the advance warning of a traffic accident. There was an ad in the Houston Chronicle on opening day — and, to be honest, the ad really gave no idea what the movie is all about. I am not being snarky, I am being totally serious when I ask: Do some people still just go to theaters and decide on the spur of the moment what movie to see once they get there? Do they just buy a ticket to anything because they have a couple hours to kill, and a movie (like The Cup) just happens to be playing at the right time? Again: Not making fun of the movie (or the people who paid to see it). But… why?
Between “5-Year” and “Salmon Fishing,” I’m thinking that “SF” was the more successful of the two Emily Blunt rom-coms released so far this year.
“5-Year” opened on (considerably) more screens and was the beneficiary of a major studio’s hype/marketing machine. Yet the damn thing still hasn’t reached $25-million (less than the opening weekend gross of the movie–“Bridesmaids”–its ad campaign tried comparing it to).
“SF” platformed (reasonably) successfully to high-end Sony Classics/Searchlight levels with (relatively) few ad dollars spent along the way.
It’s all about expectations.
And how surreal is it that there’s less than $10-million separating “Hunger Games” (THE “big” movie of the year pre-May 4th) and the Marvel Miracle after 10 frigging days of the latter’s Cinderella release?!?!
“I have always been a box office realist. I don’t take well to studios calling their shot and then magically hitting very specific, marketable targets. Never have. Never will. Doesn’t natter how I feel about the film.
Of course, when the numbers are up in these regions, there is a good chance that many people have lost their minds and often, their willingness to be reasonable. This 1% or so of studio releases does not conform to any history. So it becomes a Rorschach test. It’s not actually about the box office and the realities that can be relied upon the vast majority of the time. It becomes personal.”
Well, that’s a bunch of nonsense.
I think D.C. would be smart to not try and do what Marvel has done here. Pretty much everything worked out perfectly. Faverau and crew set the perfect tone for the Marvel properties and were followed up with four adequate to quite good films with “The Incredible Hulk” being the only downtick.
D.C. is stuck now with its two primary properties, Batman and Superman in two stylistically and tonally incongruent places. Trying to shoe horn Superman, Aqua Man, Wonder Woman, etc. in to the Nolan universe will never work. Snyder’s Superman is still a huge question mark after the underwhelming performance of “Superman Returns”. Early word is that Snyder is going for a more sprawling sci-fi spectacle compared to the earthbound exploits of the Donner and Singer films. This may be the right move if Warners hopes to incorporate Supes in to future adventures with the more flamboyant D.C. characters.
Still, that idea hit a major speed bump with the disaster that was “Green Lantern.” “Lantern” was a bad film, but it also illustrated how much more “out there” a lot of the D.C. characters are. Iron Man, the Hulk, Captain America, etc. all had the advantage of occupying planet earth with back stories that can reasonably be intermingled with one another so to create coherent “team-up” stories. Only “Thor” is really in that odd place where you have to develop an entirely new world and set of characters to even get to the point where he can meet up with the other Avengers.
In the end I think it may make sense for D.C. to continue cashing in on separate films about their preeminent characters without stressing the inevitability of a new Avengers type film. Maybe groups of two or three characters can cross over and maybe down the road Batman gets rebooted in a way that makes it possible for him to fight along Superman, but it doesn’t seem like we’re going to be there full a long time.
There’s still a lot of money to be made with solo character films as various studios did with various Marvel characters like Spiderman, Hulk, and X-Men. None of those films may have reached “Avengers” levels, but Spiderman and the Burton Batmans certainly represented the pinnacle of what could be done financially with a comic property and even when you look at adjusted dollars hold up very well compared to something like “Avengers.”
In short, D.C. shouldn’t try to copy the Marvel model because copycats rarely prosper in the same way. In a lot of ways what they’ve allowed various directors to do with the Batman character remain the most interesting tangent in comicbook films to date, and the money has always been there too. A “Justice League” film may always just be a bridge too far, that’s not worth casting aside what’s been done in earlier films in order to attain.
Woulda thought God Bless America would do a little better.
Dark Shadows is doing better than Depp-Burton’s R-rated collaborations at least, but Dark Shadows just isn’t that well-known a commodity. I’m 38 and the first time I’d heard of it was when Burton first expressed interest in making a movie about it.
BOM-BOM BOM-BOM! Deedly-dee! Deedly-dee!
BoulderKid, how about a potential batman vs superman film?
IMO such a film would exceed whatever a JLA movie could make assuming MOS is good and does well
part of the reason is JLA could be seen by general public as just copying Avengers and would include a poorly received GL assuming GL Doesn’t have to be rebooted before JLA
If MOS does well WB could focus on MOS 2 and a batman reboot leading to batman vs superman
or maybe even do it without a batman reboot first
kbx,
Well I did mention the possibility of a few characters crossing over, but still I don’t think Superman can fly in to the Nolan universe to take on Bale. Addditionally I don’t think Warners is going to want to reboot Batman for at least another four or five years. To do so earlier would be kind of an eff you to Nolan and you have to believe they value their relationship with him.
I think at this point Warners best hope is to get a strong Superman franchise going because that’s really where a lot of the whole D.C. universe seems to stem out of and the one horse in the comicbook stable that is not really running at full speed right now. Still, I don’t think a Superman Returns level performance for Synder’s film, even throwing on another 50 to a 100m for inflation, is going to go convince the studios to go and drop 600 million dollars to go and develop a series of D.C. films the same way the first Iron Man amped everyone up and set the tone for future films.
Well, Think… care to actually add something rather than just throwing stones?
How is it nonsense?
1) It’s DC.
2) All of those OUT THERE CHARACTERS in the DC universe, have had several iterations on TV and have rather well known backstories. DC would be stupid to not do a JLA movie.
Will the success or failure of The CW’s new Arrow (as in Green Arrow) series have any effect on the planning for a JLA movie? Or will that be deemed as irrelevant as the fact that neither Wonder Woman nor Aquaman was picked up as a series in recent years?
“Good on Disney, which is covering the stench of John Carter‘s marketing failure with a movie that, for the most part, went though the same system with the same fired people who did the same deep bowing to the powers behind both movies, that John Carter did.”
That’s just not true, DP. Ricky Strauss came in so late in the game on John Carter that there was nothing to be done to account for the trainwreck that Carney and others had created.
There was no strategic planning on JC, and it showed. In contrast, Marvel and the Disney marketing team had a long-range strategic plan in place for The Avengers that worked out nearly perfectly. Strauss was much more involved in the marketing for Avengers than anyone at Disney was for JC.
Do some digging.
If Fox News did box office analysis:
Avengers flops in its 2nd weekend at the box office, as it tumbles $104m from it’s opening weekend. A figure surpassed only by Harry Potter Deathly Hallows part 2.
It should be noted that in the past ten days, it has not surpassed The Hunger Games to be #1 for the year, and much credit should be given to Mitt Romney for taking his kids to see it which is the chief reason for The Hunger Games box office success.
Much could be learned from the success of the movie Undefeated with Sarah Palin where it’s backers could report “Mission Accomplished” after being released in ten theaters.
🙂
Surprised the number for a certain Chloe/Blakey movie are even THAT high, since there were all of THREE people in one of the seven screenings I’ve caught so far.
Dave, I kind of soft-petaled on this last week, but you really cannot discount what Marvel pulled off here and how it is such a unique achievement:
They have created a mega-success out of what is basically a “spinoff” movie. Think about that.
We have seen the past few decades filled with aborted attempts to create big budget spinoff or “cross-over” films from successful franchises….and no one ever pulls it off.
Remember Leo Goetz from the Lethal Weapon movies? Huge franchise, Joel Silver’s company behind it….never happened. Probably because Joe Pesci priced himself out of it.
Remember Jinx from Die Another Day? James Bond is a huge franchise, the Broccolis run a very tight successful ship….never happened.
The Catwoman movie with Michelle Pfeiffer….Tim Burton was even going to direct it….never happened.
And the spinoff movies that did actually happen, oy: Elektra, Evan Almighty, Supergirl, Speed 2 – Cruise Control (think about it), Son of the Mask and just think of how much Universal is likely going to lose on This is 40 and The Bourne Legacy combined. (Though I am eager to see both.)
Branching out characters or venturing into other parts of a character’s “universe” has worked periodically in TV, but almost never in modern movies….and no, I’m not counting true prequels or rebotts. Now we are looking at the first true non-James Cameron megahit of the past 15 years actually being based on such a concept.
Whedon deserves a lot of credit of course, but Feige and the marketing folks at Paramount (that’s right) deserve the lion’s share of why this took off. They spent years patiently building up new brands and crafting clever ways to link them, sometimes even at the expense of the quality of some of those individual films – ie. Iron Man 2 and the (still crappy to that particular movie’s tone, I don’t care how it set up Avengers) ending of Captain America.
Dave does have a point about Disney….they just did what they usually do and pretty much stayed out of the way and copied the formula. The campaign FELT a lot like the ones Paramount did for Iron Man and Thor…just on a more varied scale with a greater variety of characters to showcase. I have to admit that I am just purely fascinated as to who was really running the marketing campaign for this movie and who was behind the creative.
Because to brush it off as the same folks who tanked John Carter doesn’t make much sense….that campaign was god-awful and completely undersold the movie. Whereas this one utilized every single marketable element of the Avengers story. Any insight on that? I mean, was Paramount involved or when was their involvement cut off exactly? There has to be a reason that they still had their logo before the movie and that they got such a huge kickback of the domestic gross….was this really just Disney in name only??
That said, took my daughters to the Disney Store yesterday and lo and behold…The Avengers discplay is front and center! Even convinced my girls to get that $10 figurine set (not a bad deal) to play with instead of their new passionate desire to get yet another array of princess garb, this time for Brave. Store manager told me Avengers stuff is selling as briskly as any other boy-oriented stuff for Disney has in recent years, including Cars. So that’s one area where Disney has it over Paramount, for sure, and probably where they’ll make more cash.
Oh and one other thing: Depp and Burton deserve some kudoes for opening Dark Shadows at $28 million – any one who thought the movie would do much beyond that, even without the Avengers juggernaut out there, was kidding themselves. Consider this: it out-opened The A Team, based on a hugely successful Top 10 hit that had a carefully calibrated marketing campaign….whereas Dark Shadows was a niche show that never made it past syndication. However, did it really cost $150 million??? Ouch.
It might have out-opened A Team, but will it get past A Team’s $77m. Traditionally Burton/Depp flicks have had legs, so we’ll see. Memorial Weekend is coming up, which is sometimes a buffer, but with What to Expect opening for the female audience, who will also show up for Will Smith, legs on Dark Shadows may be a bit harder to come by.
I’m really having trouble seeing how it’s unreasonable to have expected a vampire movie starring Johnny Depp to have opened better.
“The Avengers” is nothing like a spin-off movie. You aren’t taking a side character or guest star and giving them the spotlight on their own. Here you’re taking four big draws and putting them in one picture together. If anything, this is more like the superhero version “The Original Kings of Comedy” or “The Blue Collar Comedy Tour”.
Geoff: What about “Puss in Boots”? That was a spinoff from the “Shrek” films, and it was a success.
Also, what Hallick said. In terms of combining franchises, one could compare “The Avengers” to, say, “Freddy vs. Jason” — which became both the highest grossing “Nightmare on Elm Street” movie and the highest grossing “Friday the 13th” movie.
That’s absolutely right Hallick, so it’s not the equivalent of having Jinx or Catwoman spin off of their respective franchises. It would be more akin to having Bond and Batman team up.
So it’s now a bit of reverse engineering in that the upcoming releases of Thor and Captain America, and a revamped Hulk standing to benefit the most from the Avengers success, and thus expectations may be a bit higher, perhaps with them grossing north of $200m now.
And think what you can look forward to is Avengers exchanging cameos in each others movies. Not so much as a pivotal plot point, but more just for the kick of it. And it may not be just after the credits anymore, but more like Black Widow’s turn in Iron Man, and Hawkeye’s turn in Thor. I can see audiences getting a kick out of Hulk having a quick 5 minute brawl against some baddie who eventually goes up against Thor.
I don’t call it nonsense David but as a self stated boxoffice realist you should have used the the historical boxoffice data concerning Marvel’s May movies to get an idea of how this weekend was going to be for the Avengers. Those past performances were good indicators as it turns out. After Fridays numbers came out you said it would do 90 something and some of us were fantasizing about a 100 mil and it wasnt going to happen. It wasn’t a fantasy. I extrapolated the numbers out using past percentage Marvel movie drops and increases. No wide eyed fan boy guessing but a reasoned approach.
“I was, unquestionably, wrong about the upside on The Avengers.”
Very classy.
I guess now the question is will it get to 600.
Joe –
“Do they just buy a ticket to anything because they have a couple hours to kill, and a movie (like The Cup) just happens to be playing at the right time? Again: Not making fun of the movie (or the people who paid to see it). But… why?”
I can tell you’ve never worked in a box office. Here are some of the kinds of things one hears EVERY day:
“Have you seen any of these movies?”
“Which one of these movies is better?”
“What’s ‘Polish Wedding’ about?”
“Which one of these movies has subtitles?”
“What’s starting next?”
“Do you have any reviews of these movies?”
“Okay, I’ll go to that one. You’ve convinced me. One senior.”
That must explain it. Esapecially the “What’s playing next?” option. Well, I hope those folks were pleasantly surprised.
I think it gets to 600. I think it eats Battleship and Men in Black 3. Its absorbing all marketing light and sound.
Thor seems like the most to immediately benefit from a sequel. Take Loki, take the otherwordly planes and alien menaces…. it could be the most connected of the next crop of films.
And im wondering if we dont get Red Skull at some point. I was surprised there wasnt an easter egg since he was basically absorbed by the tessarect.
Geoff: Paramount had absolutely nothing to do with the marketing of The Avengers, though you’re right to a degree that they helped set the template for what works for a Marvel movie. Their logo was on it as part of the deal to sell the rights to this movie and Iron Man 3 to Disney.
Disney’s marketing and creative teams were heavily involved in the campaign for The Avengers, regardless of what David implies.
DP – no need to take a bullet on this. You simply underestimated the repeat audience.
Will Marvel be the Pixar of superheroes, putting out a film a year – never more than two – and keeping the brand going with few rough patches? Only time will tell.
It depends on what you mean by a Marvel movie. Fox and Sony are going to dryhump the Marvel banner for every dollar possible, and the only way Feige can contain them is by offering an extension to the Avengers structure.
For example, Rothman can go forward with whatever X project he likes, but from here on out, if it says Marvel and is superhero in context, people are going to expect a continuity. If it doesn’t exist, prepare for disgruntled buyers. While it doesn’t have to RDJ, it has to be something. Feige can provide, which is something he alluded to regarding shared mutant characters.
So if he can Sony/Fox to work in tandem with Disney/Marvel, we should have two Marvel properties, per year.
Boulderkid – While you’re right about the GL misfire that’s moreso because the core plays – Nolan Bros, Goyer – weren’t involved. They’ve provided a path which differentiates their universe from Marvel, and you can get the other characters to fit, WB just has to be willing to take that risk. It leads to something quite meta as a response to Marvel/Avengers and it’s the only real option they have without being wannabes.
Robniov is in charge at WB for this very reason; utilize the damn characters before its too late. There’s no way Man Of Steel can do the business of Avengers or TDKR, leaving it for a reboot fight with Spidey. So if WB/DC shows up empty-handed at SDCC, I don’t see how Robinov justifies his tenure. You’re going to have shareholders asking why WB can’t capitalize like Disney/Marvel and would they be better off selling the division now, since the train is leaving the station.
WB has the players and no strategy. Same song, different decade.
Anghus – And im wondering if we dont get Red Skull at some point. I was surprised there wasnt an easter egg since he was basically absorbed by the tessarect.
Skull’s disappearance is the same as when Thor takes Loki back to Asgard. The Cube provides a gateway to the other realms without needing the rainbow bridge. So Skull is somewhere on the Asgardian side.
Anghus/Martin, during the credits they gave an Easter Egg of Red Skull. Thanos and Red Skull show and clearly foreshadow that thy will be in an Avengers sequel.
But is Edgar Wright gonna get to make his Ant Man movie?
wait, red skull was in the thanos part?
i totally missed that.
Jason B is mistaken, Red Skull was not in the credits scene
It was thanos and the same chitauri leader we saw interact with Loki
Burroughs… what I implied, actually, is that the Disney team DID have a lot to do with this campaign… some of whom were fired in recent months. I also suggest that there are powers at Marvel and Bruckheimer and DreamWorks and Pixar that throw their weight around (not inappropriately), but when things fail, you can’t blame Disney marketing and then when they hit, give credit elsewhere. I don’t have a quantitative analysis of exactly who made what decisions. But I do think that a consistent concept of who to give credit to or who to blame is fair.
I don’t put John Carter heavily on Rich Ross’ head… but the problems were greater than just the write down on John Carter, many of which stop at Iger’s desk.
And yes, agree with you both that Paramount’s successful campaigns were helpful. But it is what people see in this… the trailers and ads… that drive this kind of business.
Going back to Dark Knight.., it is SHOCKING how similar the Dark Knight campaign was to other Batman movies. But WB marketing still gets credit and part of that is being smart enough to copy something other WB marketers had done so successfully repeated times.
Hey, first post!
I don’t particularly think that Avengers was marketed well. The poster was terrible and the trailers were pretty lackluster. I think the strength of the film and the pedigree of the previous films are what sold the audiences, not some marketing genius. That, coupled with the fact that people wanted to see a summer movie of quality, provided the perfect storm for this movie, none of which can be replicated.
Thus, my opinion is that this is a freakish anomaly that will NEVER be reproduced by another super-hero flick while I’m alive. Spidey will do well, but not gangbusters, and DK’s story is too nebulous right now for anyone to rally behind it like the previous one. Plus, DK is lacking a Heath Ledger to make everyone freak out about how good it is. People will see it and it will do well, but nowhere near the previous one.
I didn’t think The Avengers would perform this well. I honestly doubt anyone did except for blinded fanatics. But then again, most HUGE films are almost always unexpected, or at the very least surpass expectations. I’m sure the movie will slow down a bit more, but who knows, perhaps people aren’t very excited about Battleship and MiB 3. I know I’m not.
Really, that was not Red Skull? Talk about confusing. He looked red and had a skull-like face. I realize that Thanos and Red Skull both look skull-like and it was dark on the screen, but why did he look red? If Whedon made him red, then that is really confusing, especially as Red Skull should be out there, never having been killed in Captain.
Regarding TDKR’s theoretical take, did most people expect Return of the King to outgross The Two Towers? One imagines a franchise eventually loses fans by the final installment; that there’s a peak somewhere in the middle.
Jason B.
There was no one red in the credits scene. I think you are imagining things.
Jason B. – I don’t know these comic book characters or superheroes/villains too well, but when I saw that little scene during the credits I too assumed that that had to be the bad guy from Captain America. It’s been awhile but yeah they seemed to look pretty similar to me. Red skull for a head ‘n all.
Think – just saw your post – dude looked red to me too, unless I’m losing my mind…
Dude was dark, dark purple, and had a full, even puffy, face (as opposed to skull-like, red, and missing a nose).
i knew it was Thanos in that scene. I thought he was implying that Red Skull was somewhere else in the bit and i had missed it.
And no one saw Avengers’ box office coming. Yes, you get the fanboys who scream I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT! but they do that with every movie. Hell, i remember the early online days when people said Phantom Menace would double Titanic’s gross. Thats mania.
No one saw Dark Knight coming either. Who would have thought Dark Knight would have been huge based off Batman Begins. Kevin Feige and Marvel have been doubling down since Iron Man and this is the payoff. But any claims of knowing how huge it would be are not based on facts but feelings. Like all gambles, it can payoff huge. Or it can be John Carter. It’s funny that the same company has the highest earner and the biggest loss. But that’s what gambling is. It’s risk and reward.
Regarding “Arrow,” it really seems like DC have put most of their eggs in the TV basket. Smallville, Birds of Prey, the Aquaman and Wonder Woman pilots, various animated shows and DTV movies, etc. Not sure that did Superman Returns any favors.
That’s not true, Anghus.
I never had high hopes for Avengers until maybe two months beforehand, when I got some noise on its awareness factor skyrocketing and not an ounce of competition in site.
I said last week is would do 100M in it second week, but actually thought it was going to be closer to 125M. I’m not blindly loyal to the movie in any sense, but I could see the writing on the wall. Dark Shadows had no business coming out in Spring/Summer.
I don’t see anything beating Avengers until the 1-2 punch of Prometheus and Madagascar 3 on June 8. That will suck enough people from both demos to most likely give Madagascar the win.
Doesn’t MIB3 have a pretty good shot at beating The Avengers?
LYT – re: WB. That’s because they’re lost at sea.
DC is perpetually hurting itself because you have a group of people who are jockeying for being credited with its success.
I cannot think of a character that hasn’t been optioned in some form in the past three years and I’ve got no hope they will go anywhere.
How can you not make Wonder Woman, Shazam, or even Flash? How do you screw up Green Lantern, which is as simple as it gets?
If Robinov doesn’t come to SDCC with both guns loaded, I do not see how he survives until next summer. The window Disney/Marvel has opened is wide enough now so he doesn’t have any excuses.
Paul – You’re right. I thought it was a late June release.
Avengers might still take Battleship next weekend, but Mib3 will open to at least 70 and there is no way that Avengers would be able to keep up that pace.
And I’m thinking Universal is going to have another Box Office switcheroo again this summer where Battleship falters but hits what would be a decent gross for Snow White and Snow White exceeds expectations and hits Battleship’s projections.
But whatever happens I can see one of these titles breaking Uni’s (now quaint sounding) $87 million three day record.
Yeah, I’d say just by natural attrition, Men in Black can probably beat Avengers over Memorial Day weekend. Even if it manages another only-50% drop this coming weekend, that gives it 50 for the weekend, which would give it somewhere less than 50 over the long weekend following (most likely). I think movie nerds might forget that while MIB3 might look tired or hacky to us (although I do think it looks more promising than the secnd movie), people will probably still go see Will Smith in a Men in Black movie, at least for a weekend or two. Smith has opened non-franchise titles above the $60 million mark, so I can’t see Men in Black 3 doing less than 60 over the long weekend, and probably more like 70-80. Who knows if it’ll keep playing well into June, but it pretty easily has Avengers beat for that weekend.
Hell, even if it somehow flops, look at 6/1: that Snow White movie is probably going to do well (may catch some of the audience that would’ve seen a less weird-looking Dark Shadows). If it opens to 40, would that really not be enough to beat the FIFTH weekend of The Avengers? Even super-strong holds (for a blockbuster) won’t put Avengers much above 25 on that weekend, and it could well be lower.
I’m not arguing Avengers isn’t HUGE — even with the more mortal-looking drops and other movies taking away the (meaninglessish) #1 spot, it’s doing $550 million or so, maybe more. I just wouldn’t bet on it ruling the charts for over a month. Three weekends on top for a big summer movie is pretty amazing on its own. Consider that Dark Knight did 4… and that was against the back half of the summer, facing Step Brothers on week 2; Mummy 3 on week 3; Pineapple Express on week 4. May and June are generally a lot more competitive.
And actually, while the 2012 competition for Dark Knight Rises is a bit stiffer, it’s similarly light: once again, it goes against a comedy (likely a hit) in its second weekend (and also Step Up 4, but that’s pretty nichey); and then a couple of action movies that right now look to me pretty steamrollable in early August (Bourne, Total Recall)… then pretty much comedies for the rest of August.
An Avengers-sized hit in mid-to-late July could potentially stay at number one for four, five, six weeks… but in May and June, it just doesn’t happen much.
Return of The King was the finale of one cohesive story so there was pent up demand for the it. Dark Knight Rises may have some of this which would offset the missing ingredient of the most popular Batman villain The Joker and of Heath Ledger fans still feeling the loss from his death. But, I still don’t think it will quite match Dark Knight’s box office…though it might be close.
I agree the marketing of The Avengers wasn’t that good but it had the cumulative must see for those that enjoyed any of the previous Marvel titles building up to it. Plus, it’s had a marked lack of any competitive movies geared towards men. Dark Shadows sure wasn’t going to pull away many hence the great hold and Battleship/MIB3 look underwhelming so Avengers legs will be good and it will knock Dark Knight out of the #3 worldwide box office position.
Lynch, Dark Knight is #3 domestic. Avengers has already topped or at least equalled (based on weekend estimates) Dark Knight worldwide.
I momentarily forgot Will Smith can open any action comedy he’s in. He hasn’t done a film in a while, which will probably help its box office as well.
I stand corrected, yep – Dark Knight #3 domestic and Deathly Hallows Pt2 is #3 worldwide.
It’s quite unusual that Will Smith, one of the world’s biggest box-office stars, hasn’t released a movie in four years. He was building up his family franchise with son Jaden and daughter Willow but returning with a tired franchise that noone was clamoring for is a tired move.
The reason AVENGERS is making bank is word no mouth. Its a perfect summer pop spectacle with wit and soul. Audiences didn’t reapond to the other Marvel films the same way. What Whedon did is a great template – bring on the writer/directors!
And sorry, the DC characters don’t have the same pop value. THE FLASH is boring.
Hey, someone welcome Randall P! I’d tend to agree w/you on the marketing. Nothing too special as far as what they paid for and designed. Sure, there were dollars spent in publicity and keeping the possibility of an Avengers in the forefront of everybody’s mind but it was awareness that drove the masses, not being enticed by seeing something new. As far as unmatched success, I don’t know, maybe nothing on the immediate horizon but something will knock this off in the next decade. If for no other reasons than tickets being $50 each.
I couldn’t tell you about overall b.o. but I thought Avengers would present the best shot at breaking the $200K barrier. I’m definitely not a fanboy. I remember being really surprised when I first found this site at how low the predictions were on Dark Knight opening. My first post was going to say that I bet TDK would break the bo record. Seriously. But, I didn’t want to look like an idiot w/limited perspective on the film industry, so instead, I chose to talk about the film Wanted.
I don’t have a prediction for TDK-R. Talk about a film interest driven by goodwill and property awareness, I thought it’d be cool is if all WB did for a marketing campaign is the bat symbol with the date of release and that’s IT. I still think it’d open to $130M.
Can Think Like a Man make it to $100M? Been seeing some big air expectations for The Huntsmen or whatever than new Snow White project is called. Is it really going to open to more than the first entire boxoffice run? (Domestically). I know it’s being billed at the darker of the two films but isn’t it still PG-13? When does Brave open up? Could that still whoop its ass? I was thinking the Julia Roberts film would’ve done better. Prior to seeing it. I’m wondering if tween & teen girls want to see a heroine in a full length dress. I’d think they’d be more down to seethe kick ass black pants of Scar Jo in Avengers or JLaw in Hunger Games. I could see Huntsmen being a bit of a disappointment as I think about it.
Welcome Randall
Not giving credit to the marketing of a movie that opened to a $207 million weekend is beyond ignorant.
Men, women and children of all ages felt compelled to see Avengers on opening weekend. And Lynch claims “the marketing wasn’t that good”.
DP & others, does that statement rank among the most uninformed statements ever posted here?
Was there a demand to see this movie simply based on the previous films? Of course. But there is no doubt that there must’ve been a ton of possible marketing missteps that were avoided and conversely other opportunities that were taken advantage of but could have been overlooked along the way that would’ve prevented the movie from opening to over 200 MILLION DOLLARS. Once again: 200. MILLION. DOLLARS.
As the kids say: SMH.
You’d think SOMEBODY might have called the creator of their next big villain at least to say thanks:
http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2012/05/11/avengers-spoiler-special-mystery-villains-creator-speaks-out/#/0
I think it may be fairer to say “The marketing was uninspired” rather than “The marketing wasn’t that good”.
Certainly there was nothing terribly innovative – the Twilight/Hunger Games have the monopoly on the mall tour set, and Ashton Kutcher et al. are trying the Twitter route. There were no “Captain America” tweet accounts as far as I was aware.
It was just a solid mainstream campaign, not a gamechanger in that respect by any means. It did the job of building awareness, 200mil doesn’t happen in a week of WOM.
“200mil doesn’t happen in a week of WOM.”
It sure does these days.
Then why is Avengers the only one? *coughKickAsscough*
Edit to elaborate:
You can’t cherrypick data like that – as someone in one of the other threads said, when well-reviewed movies break box office records it’s because audiences flock to quality. When less-well-reviewed movies break box office records it’s because audiences have no taste.
There is a mountain of evidence to indicate that WOM by itself can’t account for breakout successes, at least in the timeframe of the Avengers. Remember, Avatar for which WOM was HUGE built out over 9 weeks. WOM is even smaller of a factor due to the scale of The Avengers, where there simply aren’t enough active users of social media to account for ticket sales. You’d have to have every single Twitter user in the US to turn up the first weekend to get $200mil – it’s far more likely that traditional marketing on a known quantity that had been built over 10 years played a major factor.
David, there is nothing wrong in missing on your prediction. I heard a few people predicting 75-80 million in “The Avengers” second weekend. And Box Office Guru predicted 155 miilion for it’s opening, i’ve never seen anybody miss by that much as i can recall, 52 million wow. It’s becoming very clear that “The Avengers” is very dominant at the box office and should stablelize and show strong legs. The numbers are just insane, you can’t help but to be blew away by them. I think you’re spot on about this week’s drop for “Avengers”, close to 42% sounds about right, which would put “Avengers” around 60 million this weekend. I was thinking 55-65 million this weekend. It should close out sunday between 455-470 million in my opinion, that’s just unreal.
Christian – It’s the Marv Wolfman effect.
Wolfman had argued that he had not been bound by any work-for-hire contract at the time he had created the characters in 1972 and that Marvel’s subsequent use of the characters had been contingent on his approval. The court ruled, however, that Marvel’s later use of the characters was sufficiently different from Wolfman’s initial creations to protect it from Wolfman’s claim of copyright ownership.
Thanos first appeared in ’73, so the same agreements would have been in place. They’ll say it was about not spoiling the surprise, but, I doubt it.
“The marketing was uninspired.”
Foamy that seems like a more reasonable comment than “the marketing wasn’t very good.”
However, when a movie’s opening weekend b.o. appears to have left zero dollars on the table, don’t you think it is ludicrous for people to wish the marketing campaign had been executed differently in any way — given that doing so would almost certainly have resulted in a smaller box office result? Unless those people don’t understand that the goal of marketing is to be as effective as possible.
Let me put it this way – a way nobody here has factored – I saw THE AVENGERS TWICE in one week. I’m not even an apologetic comic book film nerd, I just thought this was the best superhero film since SPIDER-MAN 2.
Now if at least (low figure) one million fellow nerds go to see THE AVENGERS TWICE in a week, you go from around 10 million to 20 million. Word of mouth counts for an enormous amount in this case along with repeat viewings.
If THE AVENGERS was on the level of THOR or CAPTAIN AMERICA, it would have made half the amount.
I made that exact point last week, Christian, and was told it was anecdotal and didn’t matter.
I totally agree about repeat and WOM.
Any 18 and under who couldn’t get into 3D/Imax, but has one in vicinity, will go with other friends because it’s good enough to give it a shot in those formats.
But repeat views is different to WOM. One is the same person, one is many people.
Repeat views over a week doesn’t account for a $200mil opening weekend, because one is over a week and the other is over a weekend.
WOM doesn’t account for a $200mil opening weekend, especially when theatres are sold out a week in advance, because no-one has seen it a week in advance to spread WOM, even accounting for the early overseas opening.
These are excellent factors for week totals and weekend-to-weekend holds, but they are not as critical for opening weekend. For the argument to be made for a $200mil weekend on WOM, you would have to show that someone went from “I am not going to see this” to “I need to see this TODAY!” in 24 hours. Not “I’m going to see this sometime” to “Oh, my friends also like it so I’m definitely going to see this”. I would contend that even people influenced by WOM were already prepped by the lead-in marketing.
I should have added that I took a skeptic to my second viewing and he was impressed. WOM is a huge and obvious factor here.
WOM is huge, and an obvious factor in the continued success. But you’re still missing the point that unless you’re dragging skeptics in within the first 48 hours you’re not adding to opening weekend.
I know plenty of skeptics who decided to go to Avengers based on WOM *and couldn’t* because their sessions were already sold out. These sessions were sold out before the weekend opened – before WOM could hit.
Look – scientific method is a combination of two things (1) Accepting the null hypothesis (traditional explanation) unless proven otherwise, and (2) Occam’s Razor – the simple explanation is usually the correct one. Show me evidence that $100mil worth of skeptics who would not have gone on opening weekend were convinced to do so based on WOM in 48 hours and I’ll go with that explanation. But until I see that evidence, I’m going with “The vast majority of these people had already decided to go prior to opening in the US”.
So is “chhristian” with two h’s not the same guy as “christian” with one h?
Foamy, there is no way to actually prove why this film is making gold except the obvious – folks excited and a satisfying film. I know half a dozen dads who took their families opening night.
“How could this oddball sci-fi flick pull in such boffo bo in only a week?”
The Hot Blog, 1977
I was amazed when my Father told me last night he was planning to go. He hasn’t even seen the previous Marvel movies – and he’s excited. And that’s apretty much all WOM.
So I think the point being made has been confused…it’s not that WOM isn’t a factor. It’s that WOM isn’t a factor on Opening Weekend.
So if you’re arguing for WOM being a factor on opening weekend, you’d have to figure out, for example, how many people who had no interest on Opening Friday ended up spending their time and money on Sunday. Talking about WOM taking effect over a week after its release is the wrong point since the one variable that makes WOM effective is more time.
For the record, I do think WOM could have an effect on Opening Weekend if the reviews/social media comments were off the charts, which they were for this movie. I mean, it almost did for me, so had I actually gone, I probably would be defending the opposing side with my own anecdotal evidence. But what kind of effect it has and how big isn’t really possible to know yet.
Imagine if Avengers were remotely a good movie, and not a middling, sloppy mashup of Ocean’s 12 and bad television with NO VISUAL STYLE shot in the Hackspect Ratio by a crappy second-tier tv writer.
People do talk over the course of a weekend.
Btw, in case nobody’s noticed, this is almost certainly going to sell fewer tickets than The Dark Knight. We’ll see about The Dark Knight Rises, but unless the trends change soon, it’s not the biggest superhero movie ever. It’s just the one with the highest average ticket prices, and that is not at all the same thing.
Hey, Lex- Kristen Stewart is supposed to be “frequently topless” in “On the Road.”
Just thought I’d pass that along.